Anthrozine

Mauna a Wākea: Whose culture is the most important?

June 8, 2019June 12, 2019 Abbie Hallinan1 Comment

Have you ever felt so connected to a piece of earth that you can feel the appreciation in your heart swell? Or perhaps you envision that place in your mind, recollecting the memories, and become very upset at the idea of it no longer being there? What if I told you that the connection you feel to this land is just imagined in your mind, and has no material precedence and should become developed for Western intellectual pursuits? Would you feel devastated?

I like to keep myself up to date with the controversies surrounding natural and sacred spaces, and their ongoing protection and destruction from capitalist developments. Divergent concepts and understandings of culture around the world have laid the groundwork for multiple controversies surrounding environmental protections, the rights of nature and climate change; from the protection of water at Standing Rock, the scheming of the Australian government to bulldoze 800 year-old sacred Djab Wurring trees, to El Salvador becoming the first country to recognise the inherent rights of natural forests. I think it is important for all beginner anthropologists to consider how different understandings of culture play into these debates.

Recently on October 30, 2018, the Supreme Court of Hawaii approved the building permit for the Thirty Meter Telescope on top of the sacred Hawai’ian mountain, Mauna a Wākea. This decision came after years of legal battles between the Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawai’ians) and scientists, as well as multiple country stakeholders (India, China, Japan and Canada).

“A panorama of the Milky Way from Mauna Kea, Hawaii. From left, University of Hawaii 2.2 Meter Telescope, Mauna Kea Summit, Kilauea Volcano under cloud cover and Mauna Loa.”
Mauna Kea

The Kanaka Maoli and environmentalists opposed the development of the giant telescope because it would be built on one of the most sacred natural locations in Hawaiian culture. The Mauna a Wākea is a sacred mountain for the Kanaka Maoli. Wākea, sometimes translated as “Sky Father”, is considered the father for many of their peoples and in other respects the “piko, umbilical cord, or centre of existence for Hawaiians” (Sacred Mauna Kea 2015, p.1). The summit is a sacred place for their spiritual connectedness, practices and sense of oneness with the earth – all of which are fundamental elements of their culture (Ibid).

Many of the telescope’s stakeholders failed to acknowledge the importance Mauna a Wākea had in Hawaiian culture and instead, focused on the scientific exploration and commercial production that the telescope would bring. This was evident in the TMT International Observatory’s commitment to “a new paradigm of development on Mauna Kea founded on integrating culture, science, sustainability and education” (TMT 2017, p.1). Their investment in the TMT, as the largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere, was ultimately embedded in their desire to bolster Western cultural and astronomical contributions.

This opposition between the worldviews and values of the TMT and the Kanaka Maoli brings into question: What counts as culture and who determines what cultural perspectives “win” in developmental conflicts?

The struggle over Mauna a Wākea is a struggle over the meaning and making of sacred places, nature and Indigenous cultures. Native Hawai’ian scholar, Marie Alohalani Brown (2016), describes that the kinship relations between the Kanaka Maoli and the island-world environment are not validated by the West unless they are materially visible. She states, “The Hawaiian Islands…[and] culture is something to be enjoyed as long as it is presented in a form that is palatable, saleable, and consumable” (Brown 2016, p.166). The traditions and sacred elements of Indigenous cultures are recognised insofar as they do not limit the economic and cultural projects that strengthen Western domination.

The western ideologies of scientific exploration and commercial exploitation are imposed on the Kanaka Maoli by the TMT as being for ‘the better good of humanity and culture’. This prioritisation of western thinking is clear in the Hawaiian Supreme Court’s decision to approve the construction of the telescope – it alludes to how scientific discoveries and explorations have become a fundamental aspect of Western culture that is treated with the upmost regard. This is completely at odds with the spiritual relationship to Mauna a Wākea and the island world that is central to Native Hawaiian culture – the sacredness is not merely a concept or label as perceived by those holding the western ideologies. The sacredness of the mountain stems from their understanding of it as a kin relative – “Sky Father” – which they maintain a sacred and traditional relationship with. The mountain is, in many respects, a lived experience that is representative of the Kanaka Maoli’s connection to the natural and spiritual worlds (Brown 2016, p.166).

This is evidently a highly contested space, within and beyond, the anthropology discipline. But these cultural complexities leave us with some key anthropological questions to ponder: what ‘counts as culture’ in our Western society? And who decides whether nature is incorporated into these understandings and protections of ‘culture’?

References:

Brown, Marie Alohalani 2016, ‘Mauna Kea: Ho’omana Hawai’i and Protecting the Sacred’, Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture, vo.10, no. 2,150–69.

Sacred Mauna Kea 2015, Sacred Mauna Kea-He Makahiapo Kapu Na Wakea, viewed 5 June 2019, <https://sacredmaunakea.wordpress.com/about/>.

TMT International Observatory 2017, Thirty Meter Telescope: Astronomy’s Next-Generation Observatory, viewed 6 June 2019, <https://www.tmt.org/>.

Do you believe in ‘Magic’? After reading this you just might…

June 7, 2019June 12, 2019 lanisellers2 Comments

When I was 12 years old I found magic (kind of). Both of my parents are atheists, but I didn’t want to follow in their footsteps so I began searching the web for a religion. I remember coming across a site about paganism and white magic and I instantly knew it was the one for me (it may have had something to do with watching Charmed). I begged my Dad to take me to our local bookstore where he sat in the café next door blissfully unaware that I’d ventured into the religion and spirituality section to find a guide book on white magic. My affinity with white magic lasted about 2 weeks, as did most of my interests at the age of 12. However, I clearly remember one of the rituals about letting go of stress. You were to take a nice long bath with an egg. Upon draining the bath, you were to visualize all of your anxieties being absorbed into the egg which would then be buried in the garden.

Years later reflecting on my 2 weeks as a white witch I’ve come to realize a great deal of overlap between everyday acts of ‘self-care’ and ‘white magic.’ Taking a bath is still a ritual I do from time to time (minus the egg because I’d rather eat it), but I visualize all my stress being released as the water drains. According to Gmelch (1971) a ‘magic ritual’ is defined as performance of a certain task despite no ‘empirical’ evidence that it will help achieve the outcome. Therefore, rituals are regarded as largely ‘irrational.’ In many ways we are all irrational beings (what constitutes ‘irrationality’ is also context specific). Most of us would have engaged in certain rituals which come under the umbrella of ‘magic’ and yet would be averse to ever labelling our behaviors as ‘magical.’ Words are loaded and so often we get bogged down by words that we are unable to keep an open-mind.

There are other places you might never have considered to be riddled with magic, like… a baseball field? Gmelch (1971) analyzed the habits of baseball players and found a striking similarity to that of the Trobriand Islanders who used magical rituals when fishing in open water. Interestingly the Trobriand Islanders did not perform these rituals when fishing in the lagoon. It was when the chances of catching fish were more uncertain in the open waters that magic was utilized. Gmelch (1971) realized that American baseball played also engage in rituals, especially when batting as opposed to fielding because the odds are more precarious. Some of the rituals these American players performed were going to the movies on game day, eating a tuna sandwich and drinking two glasses of iced tea, tapping the home plate three times before batting and tugging their baseball cap a certain number of times.

A study was conducted on first year cultural anthropology students at The University of Western Ontario to see if they used ‘magic’ in their daily lives (perhaps you’ve done the same kinds of things without realizing it!). One student revealed: “The day of my first date with my current girlfriend, now of ten months, I came home and found a [guitar] pick in my pocket. Since then, whenever I am leaving the house, especially if I am with her, I always make sure to carry a pick.” Another student said he always wore the socks he was given on his tenth birthday when playing hockey despite their worn out state and many holes.

So before you proclaim that magic doesn’t exist, keep an open mind and reflect back on some of tasks you’ve performed over the years – magic might not be as distant as you once thought.

References:

Gmelch, G 1971, ‘Baseball Magic’, Society, vol. 8, no. 8, p. 39.

Howie, L, Sattin, M, Coutu, S, Furlong, M, Wood, M, & Petersson, E 2011, ‘Some Thoughts on Magic: Its Use and Effect in Undergraduate Student Life’, Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 179-189

Hungry for more mystical insights? See also:

Abbie’s article on Mediumship https://anthrozine.home.blog/2019/06/01/anthropology-and-mediumship-should-anthropologists-access-spaces-beyond-the-earth-realm/

Lionel’s article on Witchcraft https://anthrozine.home.blog/2019/06/05/tio-gong-tao-using-witchcraft-to-rationalise-sexual-objectification-in-singapore/

Holding Out For a Hero: Is Myth Just Spicy Ethnography?

June 6, 2019June 12, 2019 Madeleine Tan1 Comment

The rise of Marvel’s domination over the box office doesn’t come as a particular surprise to me – we’ve always loved heroes. From Batman, to Indiana Jones, to Luke Skywalker, to Harry Potter, our history and literary canon is saturated with them.

But what is the enduring appeal of the heroic figure? Well, with a little bit of help from the ancient past, maybe anthropology can help answer that question.

The first heroes of the Western canon – Heracles, Odysseus, Achilles – they arguably aren’t so different from those that we know and love in fiction today.

That is, if you consider the ancient and mythic definition of the hero: exceptional humans who operate in a realm more closely connected with the divine than most mortals yet are still undeniably tethered to the human world (Posthumous, 2011).

They possess these god-like capacities and abilities, allowing them to achieve what we could only dream of, and yet they are ultimately always going to be hindered by their inherent humanity and all of the flaws and consequences that come alongside it. It’s not called an Achilles heel for nothing; but these characters are loveable because they’re so imperfect (Campbell 1988).

Operating within this arguably liminal space between the divine and mortals allows us to think beyond the limitations of mortality to ‘what if’ and ‘what could be’ with wide-eyed wonder, taking us out of the mundanity of our own lives and ascending to the realm of the gods. Yet these stories are still firmly rooted in questions of what it means to be human and flawed; to eternal struggles of good and evil, life and death, love and war. To me it is this interplay between the fantastical and the real that captures our attention and our love, and in the process better allows us to understand who we are.

Is this perspective ahistorical? Maybe, but why is so much tension devoted to which side, Light or Dark, people will fall in Star Wars? Why do superheroes always have flaws, whether they be physical (ie Kryptonite) or personal (ie Captain America: Civil War)? Why does Game of Thrones revolve around human politics instead of dragons?

More importantly however, what the hell does myth have to do with anthropology?

The meaning of hero myths is still widely debated. However, Joseph Campbell (1988) argues that “myths are the stories of our search through the ages for truth” (p.4). It is the experience of life, and the adventure of the hero that is the adventure of being alive (Campbell 1988).

In the way that myths can help us better understand who we are in our culturally-specific context, such is also the role of the anthropologist, and to me it’s foolish to assume that anthropology is restricted to the realm of the objective, ‘real’ world (Sarah touches upon this in her article on future worlds). As Geertz (1973, p.16) writes, ethnographic pieces “can properly be called fictions in the sense of ‘something made or fashioned’”; anthropological writings are themselves interpretations (See: Julia’s art vs science article).

“…Reality is not other than the stories told about it” (Rapport 1994, cited in Craith and Kockel 2014) and it is part of the human condition to create these stories – both anthropology and hero myths serve as a medium to do so. As such, they both suffer under the same flaw that their truths are inherently partial and incomplete, composed of blurred lines between reality and imagination. However, this is not “an opposition between truth and falsehood” (Craith and Kockel 2014, p.695), rather, it is a recognition of the human reality of both ethnographic work and hero myths and their aim to tell stories that “ring true” from a human perspective (Craith and Kockel 2014).

So why do we love superheroes? Well… I think because, like anthropology, the best stories, the best myths, the best superhero films, serve to tell of the human condition as they are inherently grounded in it; they just takes you out of the mundanity of your own life and into the magic of the liminal world, allowing you to believe otherwise.

Image Source: Wired

References:

Campbell, J 1988, The Power of Myth, Doubleday, New York.

Craith, M. N., and Kockel, U. 2014. ‘BLURRING THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN LITERATURE AND ANTHROPOLOGY. A BRITISH PERSPECTIVE’, Ethnologie francaise, vol. 44, pp. 689-697.

Crespi, M 1990, ‘The Hero’s Journey: The World of Joseph Campbell’. American Anthropologist, vol. 92 , no. 4. pp. 1104

Geertz, C 1973. “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture,” in The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, Basic Books, New York, pp. 3–30.

Posthumus, L. 2011, ‘Agents of transformation: the function of hybrid monsters’, Hybrid monsters in the Classical World: the nature and function of hybrid monsters in Greek mythology, MPhil (Ancient Studies) Thesis, University of Stellenbosch.

Sarah’s article on Future Worlds

My article on Liminality

Julia’s article on Art vs Science?

And for those who want a bit more myth in their life:

If you want to dive straight in to the original texts themselves, then consider: Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey; Euripides’ Medea, Hecuba and Trojan Women (my personal favourites); Aeschuylus’ Oresteia; Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Apuleius’ The Golden Ass (for the myth of Cupid and Psyche).

For slightly more digestible myths: Stephen Fry’s, Mythos and Heroes; Edith Hamilton’s Mythology

For a more fictionalised retelling: Madeleine Miller’s The Song of Achilles and Circe; and I know it’s middle grade, but The Percy Jackson series still has the best chaotic good demigod representation I’ve ever read (just don’t touch the films)

Cultural Appropriation & Cake?? A Bittersweet Analogy

June 6, 2019June 11, 2019 lanisellers3 Comments

I recently started following ‘thesweetfeminist’ A.K.A Becca Rea-Holloway on Instagram. She posts pictures of her cakes which are iced with a generous amount of buttercream and political advocacy. On June 20^th 2018 Becca posted a photo of a cake which said “Abortion is Healthcare.” She has reposted this same cake many times since and particularly as of late with the 27 abortion bans that have been passed in 12 American states. Becca, however, wasn’t the only one to express her outrage via frosting. Miley Cyrus announced she’d be collaborating with Marc Jacobs to sell a jumper with the words “Don’t F*ck With My Freedom” of which all the profits are claimed to go to planned parenthood. One of the photos for this campaign depicts Miley licking a cake that not only resembles Becca’s creation, but is an EXACT replica. In response Becca wrote, “Cake art is for everyone, but this is inexcusable.” The issue is that her work was blatantly copied without her consent or any form of acknowledgement or compensation. Now while this may not be an example of cultural appropriation, parallels can be drawn from this case to the arguments presented by Brown (1998) in his paper “Can Culture be Copyrighted?”

Posted by ‘thesweetfeminist’ June 20th 2018

Trying to copyright ‘culture’ is like trying to copyright ‘cake’ (for different reasons of course) but in the same way that they are both unstable grounds to work on. Firstly, how do we define culture? Do we need to distinguish between material, tangible culture and intangible cultural knowledge? Brown (1998) argues the notion that we can somehow ‘copyright’ culture is flawed because it rests on a romanticized and purist understanding. If we can ‘replicate’ culture then it must be original and authentic to begin with. I could argue this point further or I could insert a compelling quote from Edward Said (1994, p. 448): “All cultures are involved in one another; none is single and pure, all are hybrid, heterogeneous, extraordinarily differentiated, and unmonolithic.”

Now just because culture is fluid and cake is delicious, does that mean they should be a free for all where we can steal as many symbols and slices as we want without any consequences? While at first glance it may seem as though Brown (1998, p. 207) is arguing for the protection of a liberal democracy above all else, he makes an important declaration, “Reduction of inequalities in the distribution of power is just as essential for maintaining liberal democracy as is a free flow of information.”

Becca believes that, “Cake art is for everyone” and likewise Brown (1998) argues that ideas, knowledge and personal expression should not be threatened by copyright laws. Institutionalized secrecy has a tendency to result in abuses of power. For instance, the Church of Scientology has been attempting to privatize their religious texts and ‘sensitive’ information about their organization (and I think we can see how problematic it would be to keep that info confidential).

Many debates about cultural appropriation have centered on control and the notion that by copyrighting cultural artefacts, symbols and knowledge the ‘original’ culture regains power. But will this really give power back to marginalized and minority voices? Instead Brown (1998, p. 208) asserts that greater change can be enacted through an “agreed-upon social goal” and mechanisms which provide compensation for the use of cultural symbols/knowledge. Brown (1998, p. 203) believes that all this talk about copyrighting culture is actually detracting from more important discussions such as “the fragility of native cultures in mass societies.”

What can Becca’s feminist cakes and Brown’s (1998) arguments in favour of a liberal democracy teach us about cultural appropriation? For one, copyrighting something as crumby as cake and as elusive as culture is a problematic foundation to work on. Instead we should focus on developing ‘social goals’ which foster respect for cake artists and cultural ideas. We need to think critically about how compensation can best be given to those who have inspired us and how imbalances of power effect the actors involved. I realize that these suggestions are quite ambiguous and ‘fuzzy’, but when dealing with a phenomenon as complex as cultural appropriation, perhaps any possible solutions will be just as elusive.

References:

Brown, MF 1998, ‘Can Culture Be Copyrighted?’, Current Anthropology, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 193-222.

Said, EW 1994, Culture and imperialism. New York, Knopf.

Enjoy thinking about the pitfalls of defining & appropriating culture? See also:

Dyan’s article https://anthrozine.home.blog/2019/06/10/things-we-wish-we-knew-in-first-year-cultural-relativism/

Maddie’s article https://anthrozine.home.blog/2019/06/08/subtle-diasporic-traits/

Abbie’s article https://anthrozine.home.blog/2019/06/08/mauna-a-wakea-whose-culture-is-the-most-important/

So What’s the Point of it All?

June 5, 2019June 12, 2019 Madeleine Tan2 Comments

In one of our final seminars of undergrad last year, Monica (Minnegal, Associate Professor of Anthropology at UniMelb) turned to the class and asked: so what is the point of anthropology? What is its purpose? The most obvious answers were of course that the discipline allows you to walk in the shoes of others and understand how your world could also be an Other.

But, she said, those answers won’t change the world or put money on the table.

And in amongst all of the jokes along the lines of ‘an Arts degree won’t get you a job’ (untrue), and ’the social sciences are useless’ (who are they to determine the worth of a discipline?), what does anthropology, then, serve to teach you? Imogen has written about where anthropology can take you in a more practical sense, but what is the point of taking it as a major over something more “useful”? It’s an answer you will be constantly searching for throughout your time in the discipline, but to begin to find it, we need to strip anthropology down to its bare bones.

Anthropology and ethnography begin with a concern with sameness and difference; ethnocentrism and relativism; or the Other. This difference becomes the focus of study, yet it is simultaneously also grounded in an awareness of commonality on the basis of a shared humanity (Wardle & y Blasco 2006).

Many argue that anthropology has two main, if not contradictory, aims: to document and valorise the richness and diversity of human ways of life, and to expose, analyse and critique structures of human inequality; they are not always equally balanced (Robbins 2013).

David Graeber (2007), in the conclusion of his ethnography Lost People, analyses the purpose of the anthropology and what he thinks it should achieve. He states that in his writing he tries to emphasise that we do inhabit the same world and sees no issue in subjectivity. To him the “desire to seem objective… has largely been responsible for creating the impression that the people we study are some exotic, alien, and ultimately unknowable Other” (Graeber 2007, p. 381). As an anthropologist and ethnographer, Graeber sees it as his duty to represent the people he studies in such a way that a reader “can recognise them as a human being who they might not know, but they could know” (Graeber 2007, p. 387). Anthropology to Graeber is ultimately a medium (however incomplete), that if utilised well is the best basis on which to build a broader sense of human commonality (Graeber 2007).

Part of determining the discipline’s worth then is on you, as intelligent adults who have come from and participate in a particular experience of this world and are more-likely-than-not just beginning to figure out who you want to be in it. How can anthropology and the skills it teaches you serve you for what you want to achieve in this life?

Anthropology is undeniably entangled with an unethical and dehumanising past that we as a discipline are still trying to navigate and work past. Nevertheless, the skills of anthropology are first and foremost best for working with people from all sorts of cultural backgrounds, and for negotiating and engaging with change and diversity.

How do you use those skills for good?

Well, that’s up to you to figure out.

References:

Graeber, D 2007, Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar, Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

Robbins, J 2013, ‘Beyond the suffering subject: toward an anthropology of the good’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological institute, vol. 19, pp. 447-462.

Wardle, H. and y Blasco P.G. 2006, How to Read Ethnography, Routledge, London.

Things We Wish We Knew in First Year: Liminality

June 5, 2019June 12, 2019 Madeleine Tan6 Comments

I have found some way to write about liminality at least once for every semester I’ve taken anthropology – I’m not planning on stopping now.

To my credit, it’s an attractive theory. There’s something rather magical about a space, a moment, or break before change, even when the reality is much more mundane.

Liminality is being at the threshold, where space and moments collide into something new altogether and reality feels altered; the ultimate result being some kind of change.

But for now, here’s a crash course.

Weddings, significant birthdays, graduations, wars, funerals, travel – these are all temporal (potentially) liminal experiences. These moments can also be grounded in places – seasides, airports, doorways, borders between nations, and prisons (Thomassen 2012). All points of transition, of change.

Theories surrounding the liminal state are attributed to two main writers: Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner.

Van Gennep published The Rites of Passage in 1908, theorising the titular rituals as all the ceremonial patterns which accompany a passage from one situation to another or form one cosmic or social world to another (Van Gennep 1908). It is a marker of change in being, whether that be in status, time, or age, and signified in all sorts of ways, gifts, parties, eating special things, or making wishes. Van Gennep (1908) isolated three distinct rites: those of Separation, Transition, and Incorporation.

Separation takes the person (or people) from their “Known World” by breaking things apart, entering the liminal space/transitional period, until things are joined together once more through Incorporation (Van Gennep 1908). Take the example of a Western, heterosexual wedding: the bride is separated from her current state when her father walks her down the aisle, existing in an in-between state of being neither married nor unmarried until the proper rituals (putting a ring on, reciting vows) are complete. Thus everything is restored to how it was before, but with one key difference – the bride and groom are now married.

Rites of Passage was largely ignored until Victor Turner revisited it some 50 years later in The Forest of Symbols (1967), where he brought these ideas to the forefront of anthropology, emphasising the symbolic importance of the Liminal state and its necessity for social unity (see: Communitas). Described as being “betwixt and between”, it is anti-structure (see: Communitas – another important theme of liminality), and focused around experience and connections with other people outside of everyday life. This state thus provides people with freedom from their normal social confines and customs allowing them to express their creativity and be their true self (Turner 1967). It allows people to find out new things about themselves which otherwise would have remained unknown within the familiarity and routine of everyday life, and return to their Known World armed with this new knowledge (Harrison 2012).

However, due to its anti-structure nature, liminality is and should not be a desirable state of being, nor should it be celebrated. Spend too long in this space, creativity and freedom sour into boredom, imprisonment and a sense of exile and homelessness (Thomassen 2012). Thus everyone must inevitably reincorporate themselves back into their own society, and return to the concreteness and belonging of a lived space that has been refreshed because of experiences within the liminal state.

It’s at least a little bit magical right?

And to see it as anything but, well, where’s the fun in that?

References:

My Article on Communitas

Harrison, J 2006, ‘A Personalized Journey: Tourism and Individuality’, in V. Amit and N. Dyck (eds.), The Cultural Politics of Distinction, Pluto Press, London, pp. 110-130.

Thomassen, B 2012, ‘Revisiting Liminality’, in H. Andrews & L. Roberts (eds.) Liminal landscapes : travel, experience and spaces in-between, Routledge, London, pp. 21-35.

Turner, V 1967, The Forest of Symbols, Cornell University Press, Ithaca.

Van Gennep, A 1960, The Rites of Passage, trans. M. B. Vizedom & G. L. Kaffee, Psychology Press, Chicago.

Tio Gong Tao: Using Witchcraft Narratives to Rationalise Masculine Identity in Singapore

June 5, 2019June 12, 2019 Lionel Chin Kang Teo2 Comments

Tio gong tao – A Hokkien term to describe someone who may be a victim of black magic or witchcraft (Mohsen 2016).

Tio gong tao is a narrative used to justify male victimhood when men spend excessive amounts of money on a foreign stage performer. It is a growing phenomenon that involves men developing an “unexplainable” infatuation with female stage performers, dancers and models when patronising Siam Dius (or Thai Discos). Siam Dius are drinking joints spaced around a stage that holds live band performances, all-female choreographed dancers of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai nationalities and relatively cheap alcohol. Patrons are encouraged to tiau huey (gift a garland) to a stage performer he fancies on stage. In return, the performer is obliged to reciprocate by interacting and sharing drinks with the patron for 20-30 minutes during the song and dance breaks. These garlands range from S$50-S$20,000.

Note: Only the person who has bought the most expensive garland will have the accompaniment of the performer. Performers commonly face unsolicited sexual advancements and reciprocation is on the discretion of performer and patron, as it is with any other sexual relationship. I do not condone any vitriol against these stage performers, while my post is to better highlight the relationalities between witchcraft and male victimhood better.

The video below is an emic view of the venue and the lives of the performers.

While the conduct of siam dius appear to be derogatory and disadvantageous to women on many levels, why do men still rely on tio gong tao narratives to justify male victimhood?

Tio gong tao, like witchcraft, is a spatial imaginary. Like an anthropological field, one can visualise the consistent reproduction of imaginative nuances and material practices through various political, economic and cultural channels. Over time, the imaginary is identifiable as either an accepted or deviant practice, which is integral to how people construct meaning (Comaroff & Comaroff 1999, p.285). The tio gong tao field extends or shrinks according to how relationships between men and their companion performer develop. For example, should the companionship transit into a long-term relationship, the man is typically identified as someone under very strong gong tao and is at risk of getting his freedom, wealth and material belongings manipulated.

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea to date these girls. I give them money and they can send the money home to their families. I help them and they are grateful to me and show their gratitude.” – Jonah.

According to Jonah, the nature and terms of exchange between performer and patron are distinctively different as compared to sexual transactions. For men who repetitively gift garlands to performers for companionship, observers often see such behaviour to be incredibly artificial and driven by the need for sex. However, observers do not perceive the underlying relations as what O’Connell Davidson suggests: “an affirmation of a particular racialised and sexualised masculine identity” (1995, p.44). An affirmation is how men view themselves as “white knights” (Garrick 2005, p.502). White knights perceive the on-stage performers as helpless victims of circumstance and the knights are ready to “liberate” these women through material means.

I find many parallels between tio gong tao and the anthropological study of witchcraft. Edward Evans-Pritchard argues that “primitive” belief systems are just as logical as “modern” secular versions but shaped through different cultural and social conditions (1937, p.37). Gong tao or witchcraft are systems of values which regulate human conduct and contain rich complexities and nuances.

With these in mind, the discipline of anthropology may benefit from examining the link between tio gong tao and Evans-Pritchard’s ideas of witchcraft to better understand contemporary phenomena on masculine identity in Singapore.

References:

Comaroff, J & Comaroff, JL 1999, ‘Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes from the South African Postcolony’, American Ethnologist, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 279–303.

Davidson, O 1995, ‘British Sex Tourist in Thailand’, in M Maynard & J Purvis (eds), (Hetero)sexual Politics, Taylor & Francis, London, UK, pp. 42–64.

Evans-Pritchard, E 1937, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande, Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK.

Garrick, D 2005, ‘Excuses, Excuses: Rationalisations of Western Sex Tourists in Thailand’, Current Issues in Tourism, vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 497–509.

Mohsen, M 2016, ‘4 beliefs about witchcraft found in Asia’, Yahoo Lifestyle, accessed June 5, 2019, from <https://sg.style.yahoo.com/4-interesting-witchcraft-rituals-in-asia-232102742.html>

The Elephant in The Anthropological Room

June 5, 2019June 12, 2019 Abbie Hallinan2 Comments

In the ‘Anthropological Room’ (or space), there are multiple peer-reviewed journals publishing new and upcoming anthropological research with various aims from ‘what it is to be human’, ‘ethnology’ to ‘critical analysis’. Had I known of these resources in my first year of anthropology, I would have been able to peruse through multiple journal volumes and discover my love for the anthropology of nature much sooner – because if we’re being honest, I was never entirely sure what the scope of ‘anthropology’ really covered.

Recently, I was introduced to a new academic journal that I hadn’t come across before when I was discussing colonialism with my supervisor. It is named, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. This is an international, peer-reviewed anthropology journal that seeks to situate ethnographic material “at the forefront of conceptual developments in the discipline” (HAU Journal 2017, p.1). To the novice anthropologist, such as myself, it sounds like a fine and dandy resource to keep up to date with emerging anthropological research! But wow, on further investigation it sure does have some problematic practices and colonial underpinnings.

On the home page, the journal explains its name as:

In Mauss’ classic work, The Gift, he included the Māori example of the ‘the hau of the gift’. He interpreted the ‘hau’ as the spiritual force of the giver in the gift, which demanded to be returned (Mauss 1925). However, his interpretation of ‘hau’ completely excluded Māori voices. His work is an explicit illustration of the Eurocentric appropriation of Indigenous knowledges and cultural belief systems that have, for so long, been a dark feature (or the elephant in the room) of anthropology.

On June 18^th, 2018, a group of Māori anthropology scholars wrote an open letter to HAU. They asserted that the lack of acknowledgement for the term Hau – being taken from Māori culture – exhibited “an absence of ethics of care, respect, inclusiveness and openness within HAU’s leadership” (Mahi Tahi 2018, p.1). The scholars further questioned whether the journal upheld the spirit, understandings and ethos of the Hau concept in their practices. The journal responded, providing a justification for their appropriation of the term:

“Although this Maori concept has become anthropologist’s common parlance, HAU…should have consulted you before using it” (Ibid).

HAU’s unethical practices are unsurprising given the wider controversy surrounding the journal, involving issues with the practices of the journal’s management and their lack of response to public critiques. However, this was an extremely disappointing moment for the anthropology world, particularly as it undermined all decolonial efforts that many scholars had been engaging in. HAU have merely extended the appropriation and colonisation of Indigenous knowledges that Mauss established in his work by further misappropriating it as a marketing, and thus economic, tool for the popularisation of the journal.

The cultural appropriation practices of HAU spark broader concerns about how we can continue shifting the colonial patterning of anthropology. For many students just entering and exploring the anthropology discipline, this can be a daunting task.

I believe it is our responsibility – particularly those self-locating as white settlers – to engage consciously and directly with Indigenous peoples. We must continually learn what practices can be integrated to best rectify the harm that continues to be inflicted against their communities in academia.

I am no expert in what decolonisation should look like or how it should be engaged with; but Indigenous scholars, Jeff Corntassel, Rita Dhamon and Zoe Todd, have suggested practical ways we can work towards this in academia. To monitor your personal ethics as beginner anthropologists, I would recommend actively incorporating at least two of their points into your work:

Self-location: We must self-locate to the conceptions of “settler” and settler colonialism (Snelgrove, Dhamoon and Corntassel 2014). This involves articulating (in your research, essays and day-to-day lives) how you situate yourself and your awareness of the colonial occupations of Indigenous lands (see my bio for an example).

Centring Indigenous scholars: As stated by Zoe Todd (2017), it is our responsibility as anthropologists to centre Indigenous scholars to “disrupt the privileging of euro-colonial thinking over Indigenous praxis”. We must not conceptualise Indigenous thought through a euro-colonial and philosophical lens. Instead, we must incorporate and centre Indigenous thinkers in our academic work to de-stabilise the Euro-American anthropologists that have been conventionally relied upon for the understanding of Indigenous philosophies.

*side note: the journal still has not, one year later, revised the description of their name on the website to recognise the Māori origins of the Hau concept (yikes…).*.

References:

Davis, H. and Todd, Z 2017, ‘On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene’, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, vol. 16, no.4.

Mahi Tahi 2018, ‘An Open Letter to the Hau Journal’s Board of Trustees’, accessed 5 June 2019, <https://www.asaanz.org/blog/2018/6/18/an-open-letter-to-the-hau-journals-board-of-trustees>.

Mauss, M 1925, The gift: The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. Routledge.

Snelgrove, C., Dhamoon, R.K. and Corntassel, J 2014, ‘Unsettling settler colonialism: The discourse and politics of settlers, and solidarity with Indigenous nations’, Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, vol.3, no.2.

The Precarity of Job Automation

June 5, 2019June 10, 2019 Julia Grace Wynter1 Comment

At the intersection of political, economic, and power-focused anthropology there is an emerging concern for the current state, and more importantly future state, of job security in the face of the widespread automation of production and services. In the technological age change is rapid, and the consequences of this are especially significant for the working class. Granted, there are multiple perspectives on this debate, with some arguing that jobs will simply need to be redesigned to accommodate changes and that this will be an opportunity to re-engineer businesses. I think this might be easier said than done (how’s our re-adjustment to renewable energies from fossil fuels going?).

I don’t present the total automation of working class jobs as a given, but it’s worth thinking about. When talking about this issue recently, I remembered an episode of the Simpsons that dealt with this: ‘Maximum Homerdrive’. In this episode, Homer ends up taking over the last job of a truck driver after beating him in an eating contest (the trucker died from over-consumption). After driving the truck for some time, he realises that with the push of a button the truck went into autopilot. Of course, he soon takes advantage of this and blatantly stops driving on the highway, to the dismay of other truckers who then band together to protect their secret and keep themselves in work. The Simpsons quite often tackles social issues, but I was surprised to find out when I looked it up that this episode actually aired in 1999. To me this is testament that anxieties around job automation have been around for some time, though in this case it was in jest and might soon be added to the Simpsons surprising track record of predicting the future.

The trucking community is huge in America, at 3.5 million drivers. A quick look at some of their online forums, shows a concerted effort to track the possible timeline and consequences of autonomous vehicles hitting the roads. Truckers only represent one coherent block of employment that we risk to lose; what about the slowly cumulative changes in factories and offices? What about mining? My own thesis topic concerns a town currently suffering under a indefinite mine closure by the town’s main employer, and should the mine re-open at all they will have to expect changes that will likely mean fewer jobs. And this predicament of underemployment and uncertainty ripples through the other interlinked local concerns of community, identity, art and regeneration, just like it would in any part of the world.

In recent years, anthropology has adopted the notion of ‘precarity’ to describe the current instability of work and incomes in the neo-liberal age (though now its use has stretched beyond political economy to describe a more general contemporary vulnerability). The emergence of precarity is a good example of how changing global dynamics challenge anthropology to attend to the culture of work and push further the scope of anthropology. If we are indeed headed for an employment crisis, could it be anthropology’s attention to job automation that could offer insight on solutions? LSE anthropologist David Graeber thinks we should have a 15 hour work week by now with the level of technology available, while others who delve into post-work theory tout the idea of a universal income.

So what will the future hold? A post-work socialist future where robots do the work and we… pursue our passions? Sounds wonderful, but not like something the corporate stakeholders of capitalism, our true overlords, would go for. While we wait to find out, it might comfort you to know that the job of anthropologist is not yet remotely threatened by the lighting fast growth of AI.

References:

Graeber, D. (2018) Bullshit jobs : a theory. Allen Lane.

Imagining Notre Dame: A Global Perspective

June 5, 2019June 12, 2019 Abbie HallinanLeave a comment

On the 15^th April, the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, France became engulfed in flames underneath the structure of the roof, leading to the collapse of the centuries-old Spire. As the Cathedral continued to burn with flames lighting up the sky, Parisians, tourists and international residents were seen gathering across the Seine River to pray and sing hymns together. It was a pivotal moment in history that pierced the national consciousness of France, a piercing that was felt in communities around the world as an iconic, international masterpiece began to fall.

For centuries, the Notre-Dame Cathedral has been the centrepiece of local and international societies; as an exemplar of French Gothic architecture, for the coronation of Napoleon Bonaparate, the blessing of Joan of Arc and as the sacred meeting place for millions of Catholics around the globe. From the religious perspective of many individuals, the Notre-Dame is a Catholic icon that inspired many to engage in larger devotional lives. As one onlooker to the Cathedral’s fire described:

“It (Notre-Dame) represents our ability as human beings to unite for a higher purpose” (Patel and Yuhas 2019, p.1).

Even more so, the Cathedral is a symbol that reinforces how influential Christianity was in structuring Western civilization and European culture, providing it with its morality, virtues and understanding of the cosmos. Over time, the significance of Notre-Dame has expanded beyond the boundaries of France, and it now includes an international community of Catholics that admire its religious symbology in the practice of their faith. When images and reports of the burning Cathedral flashed across televisions, newspapers and social media around the world, the international Catholic community united to donate to its reconstruction.

“New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan announces a fundraising effort from St. Patrick’s Cathedral April 18, 2019 to help support the restoration and rebuilding of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.”
New York

I argue that this collective effort to save and rebuild Notre-Dame emerges from the importance of having the Cathedral as a unifying symbol of Catholic faith. Why is this so important? Well, it reinforces imaginings of an international Catholic community. This collective imagining, according to Benedict Anderson (1983), is facilitated through the distribution of cultural materials that seek to construct and represent social cohesion. The significance of these cultural materials is then reinforced by the collective imagining.

It is the cultural force of the Notre-Dame Cathedral that Anderson (1983) argues promotes the strength of the Catholic community. The Cathedral is a cultural symbol that reflects the Catholic community back to themselves, which creates a unified imagining of the religious beliefs that rule their community.

While this is an effective way of analysing the importance of Notre-Dame as an international Catholic symbol, I’m not convinced that Benedict Anderson would be too pleased with me applying his theoretical assumptions from Imagined Communities (1983) in this context. Sorry Benny, but you laid excellent theoretical groundwork here that was too good not to build upon!

In Anderson’s original text, he asserted the “imagined community” is created by our collective imagining of the spaces we inhabit – spaces that are locally and geographically bounded. He limited the scope of the imagined community to the nation. Anderson (1983) focused on how the collective identity of the nation was spread through print capitalism (newspapers, language, literature, material maps, museums and census’), which strengthened the shared culture and nationalism that reinforced the boundaries of the nation. However, this is a major flaw in Anderson’s theory. He thought that the nation (aka community) had to emerge from a “local” group that differentiated itself from other communities and societies. He further neglected to question and understand the different forms of “community” and how these were not always bounded to one place in space and time.

It pains me to limit Anderson’s analysis locally, and I think his theory is just as effective in a global framework! I, similar to other scholars, have taken inspiration from Anderson’s ideas and used them to understand the transnational context of Notre-Dame and the Catholic community. Surely Benny would be pretty impressed with how far-reaching his original theories now are!

Let’s look again to Notre-Dame. Catholics around the world saw representations of the Cathedral burning and the devastated reactions of Catholic (and non-Catholic) Parisians on television, social media and in newspapers. These representations reinforced their imagining of Notre Dame as an iconic Catholic monument, which re-stablished their collective knowing of its sacred importance to Catholics around the world. As one facebook user described:

As a result, this collective ‘knowing’ reassured them – whether they were in Brazil, the Philippines, the United States, Ireland or wherever – that they were part of an international Catholic community devastated by this destruction. And… to try and please Benny, this global community does still consist of what he required must be “outsiders” – who in this case could be viewed as people in different religious groups.

The importance of Notre-Dame to the international Catholic community is a prime example of how it is possible to be part of a community that expands beyond the borders of France, Europe and the West; a global community that is imagined across multiple cultures, identities and languages.

References:

Anderson, B 1983, Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, pp.427-449

Patel and Yuhas 2019, ‘Fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral Leads to Expressions of Heartbreak Across the World’, viewed 3 June 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/world/europe/paris-cathedral-fire.html

See Also: Maddie’s article on Subtle Diasporic Traits; and Rita’s article Battle of the Ethics: Subsistence Looting